FLOWERING FERN.) 185. 
in a sheltered farm, in the possession of Mr. Long, it 
has forsaken these water-courses and established itself 
in the fields, where he found it a troublesome weed, an 
very difficult to eradicate. I was amused to see it 
towering above his cabbages and potatoes, and inter- 
mixed with oats and wheat. In Scotland this beautiful 
plant is common, and there also grows to @ gigantic 
size: on the banks of Loch Fyne, where its habit is 
comparatively rigid and erect, I have measured fronds 
eight feet in height. In the bogs of Lancashire it is 
abundant, but less luxuriant, and it occurs not un- 
commonly in all the northern counties of England; it 
_ ig also of frequent occurrence in North and South 
“Wales, Cornwall and Devonshire, and is scattered in 
hundreds of localities throughout the southern coun- 
$s approaching the vicinity of London, on Epping 
Forest, Keston Heath, and Kavanagh Wood, near 
Brentw: 
thrive, care must be taken to supply it with either 
i or bog-earth, well saturated with moisture, 
